Saturday, March 21, 2015

Canadian Cornucopia

Today the Columbus Blue Jackets completed a franchise first, winning all three games of the western Canadian swing through Edmonton, Vancouver, and Calgary. This is a very unusual event and one of those little signs of continued progress amongst the wreckage of this season. Presumably Head Coach Todd Richards is intelligent enough to not say something dumb like the Arniel quote of 'what have you been doing around here?' when they swept L.A., San Jose and Anaheim in the 'glory weeks' of his coaching stint. Did Arniel ever win another game out in California in his head coaching career with the CBJ?

Anyway, Rene Bourque potted two goals, one the game winner in overtime for the 3-2 victory. sandwiched around an Artem Anisimov, no-look-face-the-other-way-to fool-the-goalie-backhand goal. The franchise achievement of a sweep wasn't necessarily accomplished by dominating the other teams, it was more about playing with a lot of will against adversity, as the team experienced plenty of adversity in the three games. I guess what I am saying is that this sweep does not necessarily mean that we have a good team this year or next. But I think that collective strength of will the team showed is something that is reasonably portable, and will help you in a lot of different situations. It is also a prerequisite for being a team that will do some damage in the playoffs, and I think we fancy that this team has that kind of run in its future at some point.

I don't think any major damage was done to our draft position, we are still locked in that 6-7 range now, and that's where we should end up. That should get us some really good players.